第82章 HAMLET WAITS(4)

It seemed to Jeremy that he had never been in the Cathedral before;he stood there,breathless,as though in a moment something must inevitably happen.Although he did not think of it,the moment was one of a sequence that had come to him during the year--his entry into the theatre with his uncle,his first conversation with the sea-captain,the hour when his mother had been so ill,the evening on the beach when Charlotte had been frightened,the time when Hamlet had been lost and he had slept with him under a tree.All these moments had been something more than merely themselves,had had something behind them or inside them for which simply they stood as words stand for pictures.He analysed,of course,nothing,being a perfectly healthy small boy,but if afterwards he looked back these were the moments that he saw as one sees stations on a journey.One day he would know for what they stood.

He simply now waited there as though he expected something to happen.Thoughts slipped through his mind quite casually,whether Hamlet were behaving well outside,what the old lady did when she was tired of dusting,who the stone figure lying near him might be,a figure very fine with his ruff and his peaked beard,his arms folded,his toes pointing upwards,whether the body were inside the stone like a mummy,or underneath the ground some-where;how strangely different the nave looked now from its Sunday show,and what fun it would be to run races all the way down and see who could reach the golden angels over the reredos first;he felt no reverence,and yet a deep reverence,no fear,but,nevertheless,awe;he was warm and happy and comfortable,and yet suddenly,giving a little shudder,he slipped out into the sunlight,released Hamlet and started for home.

II

Back again in the bosom of his family he felt that they were beginning to be aware of his departure.

"What shall we do this evening,Jeremy--your last evening?"said his mother.

Everyone looked at him.

"Oh,I don't know,"he said uncomfortably."Just as usual,I suppose."

"You're making him feel uncomfortable,"said Aunt Amy,who loved to explain quite obvious things."You want it to be just an ordinary evening,dear,don't you?""Oh,I don't know,"he said again,hating his aunt.

"I don't think that quite the way to speak to your aunt,my son,"said his father."We only inquire out of kindness,thinking to please you.No,Mary,no more.Friday--one helping--""Jeremy might have another as it's his last day,I suggest,"said Aunt Amy,who was determined to be pleasant.

"I don't want any,thank you,"said Jeremy,although it was treacle pudding,which he loved.

"Well,I think,"said Mrs.Cole,"that we'll have high tea at half-past seven,and the children shall stay up afterwards and we'll have 'Midshipman Easy.'"Jeremy loved his mother intensely at that moment.How did she know so exactly what was right?She made so little disturbance,was so quiet and was never angry,and yet she was always right when the others were always wrong.She knew that above all things he loved high tea--fish pie and boiled eggs and tea and jam and cake--a horrible meal that his later judgment would utterly condemn,but nevertheless something so cosy and so comfortable that no later meal would ever be able to rival it in those qualities.

"Oh,that will be lovely!"he said,his face shining all over.

Nevertheless,as the afternoon advanced a strange new sense of insecurity,unhappiness and forlornness crept increasingly upon him.

He realised that he had that morning said good-bye to the town,and now he felt as though he had,in some way,hurt or insulted it.And,all the afternoon,he was saying farewell to the house.He did not wander from room to room,but rather sat up in the schoolroom pretending to mend a fishing rod which Mr.Monk had given him that summer.He did not really care about the rod--he was not even thinking of it.He heard all the sounds of the house as he sat there.He could tell all the clocks,that one booming softly the half hours was in his mother's bedroom,there was a rattle and a whirr and there came the cuckoo-clock on the stairs,there was the fast,cheap careless chatter of the little clock on the schoolroom mantelpiece,there was the whisper of Miss Jones's watch which she had put out on the table to mark the time of Mary's sewing by.There were all the regular sounds of the house.The distant closing of doors,deep down in the heart of the house someone was using a sewing machine somewhere,voices came up out of the void and faded again,someone whistled,someone sang.His gloom increased.He was exchanging a world he knew for a world that he did not know,and he could not escape the feeling that he was,in some way,insulting this world that he was leaving.He bothered himself all the afternoon with unnecessary stupid affairs to cover his deep discomfort.He whistled carelessly and out of tune,he poked the fire and walked about.He was increasingly aware of Hamlet and Mary.

Mary was determined so hard that she would show no emotion at all that she was a painful sight to witness.She scarcely spoke to him,and only answered in monosyllables if he asked her something.